Tristan's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

The soldiers spread through the great hall. Tristan waited behind the fallen column until the boots faded toward the far rooms. He gripped the rolled portrait against his chest. "The stairwell," he whispered. Faelynn nodded, arrow still nocked. She rose from her crouch and moved along the wall, silent as smoke. Tristan followed her past a broken doorway. A soldier's shadow crossed the floor ahead. They froze, then slipped through a side arch while the man turned away. The stairwell climbed into shadow. They took it two steps at a time. At the top, a heavy door hung open. Faelynn pushed it wide. Beyond it lay a library, its shelves cracked and leaning, books rotting on the stone. And there, between two toppled cases, stood Ashton. Blue light glowed at his fingers. Ashton had flown here with them, a friend loyal to Tristan's blood, separated when the doors first broke. His face broke into a smile when he saw Tristan. He crossed the room and gripped Tristan's arm. "You're alive," he breathed. His eyes moved to Faelynn and softened. "Both of you." Then he stopped. Voices carried up the stairwell, hard and close. The soldiers were climbing. Ashton's smile died. "Down," he hissed. He pulled Tristan and Faelynn behind a tall bookcase. They pressed flat. Boots reached the landing below and paused. "Where is your dragon?" Ashton whispered. "The back courtyard," Tristan said. "I left him there." Ashton's jaw tightened. "We could really use him right now." A soldier shouted outside. The word cut through the walls. "Dragon!" Tristan spun and ran to the shattered window. He looked down at the courtyard below. His own dragon was not there. Instead he saw a second dragon, one he knew. It belonged to his sister. Elizabeth had come. She had followed him, against her own warning, and brought her dragon across the dark to find him. Then the beast opened its jaws. Fire burst across the courtyard. The blast hit the soldiers massed at the castle wall. Men scattered and screamed. Flame climbed the old stone and lit the whole yard orange. The heat rolled up and struck Tristan's face through the broken glass. "She's here," Tristan said. He turned to Ashton and Faelynn. "Elizabeth is here." Below them the hall filled with panic. The soldiers who had climbed the stairs turned and ran back down toward the fire. Their boots thundered away. For one breath, the path down stood clear. "Now," Ashton said. "While they burn." He seized Tristan's wrist. Faelynn drew her bow toward the empty stairwell. Together they broke from behind the bookcase and ran for the door. The proof of Tristan's claim was still pressed to his chest. His sister's dragon burned a road out of the castle below. But the fire she had brought would draw every soldier for miles to this ruin, and now they all knew a dragon rider had come.